There is a wealth of information utilized by a farmer in the agricultural operation of a farm. This information includes data related to the various types of soil in his fields, the types of crops planted in the past and intended to be planted in the next growing season, the scheduled time and actual performance of various farm operations on each field such as tilling, cultivating, etc., the various types of chemicals applied to each field such as fertilizers and herbicides, the various kinds of diseases and infestations of insects which are encountered in the growing season, weather information relating to rainfall and temperatures, etc. In the prior art, a farmer generally records only some of this information, as much of it as he considers to be usable, manually in the field. Additionally, many farmers are computer literate and will manually record limited categories and amounts of this information in the field and bring it back to their home for entry into their home PC. Unfortunately, as a farmer has many responsibilities and worries other than data collection, most often the farmer does not have time or on-the-spot opportunity to record what may be very significant data. Furthermore, this data collection chore can be quite time-consuming as it is generally achieved with a clipboard or notebook, or most commonly a piece of paper, which is easy to forget, misplace, or even lose. Unfortunately for the farmer, there are increasing demands on his time to collect data such as for reporting to various governmental agencies, including the EPA. Data collection has thus become a major problem which is being forced on farmers who have little help from any prior art devices.
Because of the increasing competition and mechanization of farming, data collection has become even more important for the farmer so that he might keep better track of his costs to determine the profitability of various crops planted on various fields throughout his farm. Typically, a farmer works on a close margin such that accurate cost accounting can be critical in helping a farmer make a decision as to the various crops planted and grown. Unfortunately, for various reasons, computers have not been successfully applied to the farmer's data collection and analysis problem.
In order to solve these and other problems in the prior art, the inventors herein have succeeded in designing and developing a unique computer network which includes a portable computer with a user-friendly interface for on-the-spot data recording by the farmer having sufficient capabilities for satisfying virtually all of his information handling needs. This computer network is comprised of a client-client-server configuration. As envisioned, a typical farmer would have two computers, a "field" or portable computer as well as a fixed platform PC operating with a graphic user interface. The portable computer function may be satisfied by one of the several Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) computers recently marketed by a number of computer companies. One such example is the APPLE.RTM. NEWTON.RTM. MESSAGE PAD.RTM.. These personal digital assistants (PDA) provide a screen display covering a substantial portion of a larger side thereof, simple graphic user interface (GUI) with handwriting recognition capability, and touch screen data entry with a stylus to greatly simplify the entry of data. A PDA is compact and portable so that a farmer may readily carry it wherever he goes, in the field, on a tractor, etc. Also, the PDA is rugged enough to withstand the rigors of a farm environment.
The inventors contemplate that other user-friendly interfaces will become available in portable computers, such as voice data entry, and that any computer with a "non-command line" or "non-typed" interface would be equally suitable for use herein. Of course, this simplified data entry feature lends itself uniquely to application for this problem in that farmers as a group are no different from others who have shied away from adapting to the computer age because of the perceived difficulty in communicating with a computer. This GUI and touch screen, or non-command line, data entry scheme significantly reduces a farmer's objection and increases the adaptability of the invention for that reason alone.
On this PDA, a custom stored program is loaded which includes a hierarchy of nested displays in each of four major areas. These four major areas are operations, weather, field use, and equipment. The information relating to a growing season may be conveniently pre-loaded into the PDA from a PC through a data link connecting the PDA with the fixed platform PC in the farmer's house. This PC includes an emulation of the GUI of the PDA and provides, through the windows mouse, the ability for the farmer to track through virtually the same operational program on his PC as is found in the PDA. This greatly enhances the system by reducing the amount of "computerese" that the farmer has to learn to a single, display-driven, program. In order to increase the usability of the system, the PC is provided with a program for manipulating the data base included in the PDA, and there is also a feature which permits the synchronization of the data base in the PDA with the data base in the PC, utilizing a paradigm of most recent data override. This helps eliminate errors which might otherwise creep into the data through use of two separate computers.
A farmer may conveniently carry his PDA with him as he farms to make data entries on the spot. This data is thusly "validated" by its time stamp and place of entry. This includes the completion of various farm operations such as tilling, the application of chemicals or herbicides to a field, the observed temperature or rainfall, or virtually any other data as is explained more completely in the preferred embodiment which follows. Thus, with the present invention, the farmer for the first time may conveniently and readily enter data with minimal interference in his farming operations.
Utilizing the PDA and PC combination alone would, in itself, greatly enhance a farmer's operation of an individual farm. However, the present invention further envisions the implementation of a third step to provide a client-client-server network configuration. That entails the widespread adoption of the PDA/PC computer pair throughout various regions of the country and their connection through an offline, batched, data link with a central computer or server. With this third level, or server computer, data from many farmers and farms may be collected which can be used to assemble a master data base, in real time, to provide for the prompt feedback of "best practices" data and projections for a farmer particularized as to his most geographically significant surroundings. For example, if a farmer has fields in a valley along with several other farmers, he may find out through this master data base what these other farmers have used to solve a particular problem such as controlling a particular crop disease or infestation. He may also find out detail relating to the time and type of various farming operations performed on the same or similar crops, and their success or failure in past years. This kind of information has been generally unavailable in the prior art, and certainly unavailable on a real time basis to provide information about other farmers' practices during the same growing season. This information may be critical to a farmer's success or failure with a particular crop. The need for this invention is thus quite apparent.
In order to implement this third or server computer, the inventors have incorporated into their invention a commercial messaging service which provides for the offline, batched, collection of data from the significant number of client-client sub-networks. One such service which may be utilized is MCI MAIL.RTM.. With these services, individual farmers would call in and transmit data, and that data would then be batched and collected by the server or an intermediary computer for dispatch onto the server, as the collected data fills a "batch". As a way of encouraging farmers to utilize this messaging service, various reports and other analyses may be performed and made available to a farmer only after he has transmitted his data to the batch. A farmer's access to this commercial messaging service may be restricted by utilizing an encryption routine embedded in the PC software for translation of a farmer-entered code into a valid account number, along with a password. Through this methodology, a significant connectivity problem may be solved with safeguards included to prevent any abuse or undesired use by a farmer of the commercial service which would run up charges for non-system use.
In developing the stored program for the PDA, the inventors herein have succeeded in solving several problems related to handling the oversized amount of data required for the large variations of possible entries. For example, there are as many as about 16,000 different types of soils from which a farmer may select for each of his fields. Storing these sizes of data bases in the PDA itself would be impractical and would impede the smooth, efficient entry of data which is a highly desired feature of the present invention. This problem has been solved by providing a PC having a much greater memory size from which a farmer may choose to load data into his PDA. Still another solution to that problem is the use of a memory card which may be inserted into a PDA from which the same selections may be made. This allows the PDA data base to be conveniently customized for each farmer. Still another feature of implementation includes the ability of the PDA stored program to intelligently preselect only logical entries to populate a number of pop-up screens from which a farmer must choose during his data entry process. The pop-up screens are thusly "context sensitive". For example, during certain growing stages of a crop, only certain kinds of herbicides for killing a particular weed are usable without damage to the crop itself. A sub-routine in the stored program acts to limit these herbicide entries in a pop-up list so that a farmer need not scroll through an inordinate number of herbicides, many of which would damage the crop or not kill that particular weed. These details of implementation are important in utilizing the PDA for the task at hand in that the size of the PDA screen is limited and long pop-up lists would require scrolling for unacceptably long time periods.
There are still other features of implementation which are more fully explained in the preferred embodiment and which contribute to the success of the present invention. While the principal advantages and features of the invention have been explained herein, a fuller understanding and appreciation for the invention may be obtained by referring to the drawings and description of the preferred embodiment which follow which are not intended to be limiting.